Apparatus for automatically statistically analyzing signals having fluctuating portions and steep slope portions



Z2 12: Z SEARCH WWW Sept. 2, 1969 MORITADA KUBO 3,465,247

APPARATUS FOR AUTOMATICALLY STATISTICALLY ANALYZING SIGNALJS HAVING FLUCTUATING PORTIONS AND STEEP SLOPE PORTIONS Filed Dec. 16, 1965 7 Sheets-Sheet 1 FIG. la

STEEP SLOPE-PORTION 2 FLUCTUATING PORTION I PHENOME NON WAVE FORM STEEP SLOPE PORTION 4 F LUCTUATING PORTION 3 DIAMETER OF A YARN FREQUENCY OF OCCURRENCE pIFI OF FLUCTUATING OR STEEP SLOPE PORTION MaelfR D I' 4/080 I N VE N TOR.

Sept. 2, 1969 MORITADA KUBO APPARATUS FOR AUTOMATICALLY STATISTICALLY ANALYZING SIGNALS HAVING FLUCTUATING PORTIONS AND STEEP SLOPE PORTIONS 16, 1965 FIG. 2b

Filed Dec.

fII)

CORRELATION FUNCTION OF THE SLOPE OF FLUCTUATING PORTION 7F I G 3 AUTO- CORRELATION FUNCTION OF THE STEEP SLOPE PORTION 8 FFIZ) Auro- E M n L SR O HP T S FIG. 4

COMPONENT OF FLUCTUATING PORTION IO N mun K080 INVENTOR.

Sept.

Filed STATISTICAL DISTRI- BUT ION OF FREQUENCY OF OCCURRENCE OF STEEP SLOPE PORTIONS 2, 1969 MORITADA KUBO 3 7 APPARATUS FOR AUTOMATICALLY STATISTICALLY ANALYZING SIGNALS HAVING FLUCTUATING PORTIONS AND STEEP SLOPE PORTIONS Dec. 16, 1965 7 Sheets-Sheet :5

FIG.5G

i l I L01. OINTERVAL OF OCCURRENCE OF c STEEP SLOPE PORTIONS FIG. 5b

I I I I 14 I I I 1 i-I i 7-1 7+2 F3 I T 'I SAIVPLING PERIOD FIG. 50

FIG. 5d m INVENTOR.

I5 IIIIIIIII- mm Ma /M Sept. 2, 1969 MORITADA KUBO 3 7 APPARATUS FOR AUTOMATICALLY STATISTICALLY ANALYZING SIGNALS HAVING FLUCTUATING PORTIONS AND STEEP SLOPE PORTIONS p 1969 MORITADA KUBO APPARATUS FOR AUTOMATICALLY STATISTICALLY ANALYZING SIGNALS HAVING FLUCTUATING PORTIONS AND STEEP SLOPE PORTION 16, 1965 7 Sheets-Sheet 6 Filed Dec.

FIG.8a

FIG.8b

d 8 m E:

Mpg/mm 7230 I N VE N TOR.

United States Patent US. Cl. 324-77 4 Claims ABSTRACT OF THE DISCLOSURE Apparatus for automatically statistically analyzing the characteristics of the suddenly changing portions (or steep slope portions) of an input signal and for analyzing the frequency of occurrence of said steep slope portions.

This invention relates to automatic measuring apparatus for automatically measuring statistical treatments of information quantities. More particularly this invention relates to an automatic measuring apparatus of information quantities capable of effecting statistical measurements of quantities of suddenly changing (or steep slope) phenomena (hereinafter termed as jumping quantities) and the frequency of occurrence of said jumping quantities.

Heretofore, in the continuous test of such materials as electric wires, silk yarns, steel sheet and the like, treatments of data of measurements obtained in time series fashion were relied upon mental judgement of man and readings through his eye in most cases. In recent years, however, a variety of automatic measuring apparatus have been developed to replace such human judgements, but such well known automatic measuring apparatus can treat statistically only such relatively simple information quantities that can easily be classified and integrated. Thus, human judgements are still required to measure information quantities of a complicated nature so that it has been impossible to adopt fully automatic measuring systems. For example, the frequency of occurrence of a wave form of phenomenon F(t) that varies according to time (t) is shown on a frequency curve by a suitable pulse height (or signal amplitude) analyzer without descriminating the continuous parts and steep slope portions. Such a wave form F(t) usually consists of a series of alternate continuous and steep slope portions of varying durations. While it is easy to discriminate continuous paits from steep slope portions by viewing it, it is impossible to automatically determine the statistical distribution of the jumping quantities of the steep slope portions of the phenomenon Wave form by means of a pulse height analyzing device. Moreover, where the signal amplitude values of the continuous and steep slope portions are nearly equal, it is impossible to discriminate them by the pulse height analyzing device. Further, in the distribution curve of signal amplitude values of the differential values of the phenomenon wave form, since the signal amplitude value and the slope are generally independent it has been difficult to discriminate the slope of the continuous parts from that of the steep slope portions.

Accordingly, it is an object of this invention to provide a novel automatic measuring device of information quantities capable of rapid, economical and reliable statistical treatment of complicated information quantities.

A further object of this invention is to provide a novel measuring device which can provide accurate and proper statistical treatments of such information quantities where- 'ice in the continuous phenomena wave forms thereof contain at random a number of steep slope rapid changes.

A still further object of this invention is to provide a novel measuring device capable of providing classified statistical indications of the result of continuous examination of threads or yarns.

According to this invention the above and other objects can be attained by providing an automatic measuring apparatus comprising clock pulse oscillator, a sampling circuit arranged to operate with a predetermined clock pulse generated by said oscillator and an input signal representing a phenomenon Wave form consisting of continuous parts and steep slope portions, said sampling circuit having a sampling period T which is given by the equation where C represents the predetermined lower limit the mean value of the interval of occurrence of steep slope phenomena and 1/2b represents, as shown in FIG. 3, the abscissa at the point where the transversal axis is intersected by the tangent at 7:0 of the autocorrelation of the steep slope portion (i.e., 1/2b represents the distance between an origin and said intersecting point), an analogue-digital converter to convert the sampling data obtained from said sampling circuit into a digital signal, a first counter to count one of two adjacent measuring points in the digital signal train transformed by said converter, a second counter to count the other of said two measuring points, and means to alternately supply signals counted by said first and second counters to a pulse height analyzing device to automatically measure the occurrence of the jumping quantities of said steep slope portions of said phenomenon wave form.

The above and other features of the invention which are believed to be new are set forth with particularity in the appended claims. This invention itself, however, together with further objects and advantages thereof may best be understood by reference to the following description when taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings in which:

FIG. 1a is a wave form showing the continuous and steep slope portions of a phenomenon wave form F(t);

FIG. 1b shows statistical distribution curves of the occurrence of the crest of continuous and steep slope portions of the phenomenon wave;

FIG. 2a shows the approximated wave forms of the differentiated value 1 of the phenomenon wave form F FIG. 2b shows statistical distribution curves showing gradients or slopes of the continuous and steep slope portions;

FIG. 3 shows a time characteristic curve of the autocorrelation function of the gradients of the continuous and steep slope portions of the phenomenon wave form F(t);

FIG. 4 is a graphical representation on coordinates of the gradient 1 against the amplitudes A; of peak values showing distribution curves of noise components, continuous part components and steep slope portion components respectively;

FIGS. 5a, 5b and 5c are graphical representations of certain characteristics to aid the understanding of this invention;

FIG. 6 is a block diagram of one example of the automatic measuring device embodying this invention;

FIG. 7 is a block diagram of a modified measuring apparatus especially suitable for accurate measurement of jumping quantities of steep slope portions; and

FIGS. 8a, 8b and 8c are wave forms of phenomena to explain the operation of the device shown in FIG. 7.

In the continuous measuring of an object, the frequency of occurrence of a phenomenon wave form F(t) that varies with time (1) is shown on a frequency curve without discriminating continuous parts and steep slope portions, by means of a pulse height analyzer. For example, as shown in FIG. la, the phenomenon wave form F(t) which shows the relation between the continuously measured value of the diameter of a silk yarn or thread and time comprises continuous (or fluctuating) parts 1 and steep slope portions 2, the former corresponding to thicker portions Whereas the latter thinner portions of the silk yarn. In these measurements it is easy to observe with naked eyes the continuous and steep slope portions 1 and 2 and to identify the latter. However, it is difficult to measure automatically the statistical distribution of the jumping quantities of the steep slope portions of the phenomenon wave form PU) by means of a pulse height (or signal amplitude) analyzer. Where the signal amplitude values of the continuous parts 1 and the steep slope portions 2 of the phenomenon wave form F(z) are equal, as is evident from curves shown in FIG. lb which represent the frequencies of occurrence P(F) of the continuous and steep slope portions with respect to the diameter F of the yarn, distribution curves 3 and 4 for the continuous and steep slope portions, respectively, overlap each other so that they can not be discriminated by the pulse height (or signal amplitude) analyzer. Moreover, as shown in FIG. 2a, in the approximated wave forms of the dilferentiated values of the phenomenon wave form 1 (1), signal amplitude values F(t) and the gradients f(t) are generally independent it is impossible to discriminate the gradients 5 of the continuous parts and those of the steep slope portions 6.

According to this invention, in order to determine the oscillating frequency l/T of the oscillator 16 of FIG. 6, the differentiated value f(t) of the phenomenon wave form F(t) is obtained and then the autocorrelations function of f(t) is obtained. The apparatus required for performing the sampling, differentiation, and correlation, should be apparent to those skilled in the art within the spirit of this invention, and is not shown. The autocorrelation function e of the continuous and steep slope components is generally given by the following equation where A and B are constants.

Thus the extent l/Za of the autocorrelation function 7 regarding the gradients of the continuou parts and the extent 1/21) of the autocorrelation function 8 regarding the gradients of the steep slope portions can be noted from a graph shown in FIG. 3 wherein the ordinate represents the autocorrelation function (may of the differentiated values y(z) of the phenomenon wave form F(t) and the abscissa the lag time T. Also it can be noted from FIG. 3 that the mean period of the gradients of the continuous parts is l/a wherea the mean pulse width of the gradients of the steep slope portion is equal to l/b.

The statistical distributions of various components Will now be considered by referring to FIG. 4 wherein the ordinate represents the slope or gradient j(t) of the phenomenon wave form F(r) and the abscissa represents the amplitude A of the peak to peak values of the phenomenon wave form F(t). More particularly, the noise components 9 have small amplitudes A and wide gradients whereas the continuous components 10 have similar distribution as the noise components 9 but have a slightly wider amplitude A On the other hand the steep slope components 11 generally have wider amplitudes A and larger gradients f. It is clear that the difference between steep slope portions, and both of continuous parts and noise parts can be discriminated from each other by inspecting FIG. 4. Thus, the statistical distribution P(c) of the interval of occurrence C of the steep slope portions and the extent 1/212 of the autocorrelation function of the gradients of the steep slom portions are obtained from FIG. 5a as statistical quantities inherent to the phenomena whereby to determine the sampling period T given by the equation 1/2b T C (2) Where C represents the practical lower limit of a curve 12 shown in FIG. 5a wherein the ordinate represents the statistical distribution P(c) of the frequency of occurrence of the steep slope portions and the abscissa represents the interval of occurrence of the steep slope portions. If the sampling period T is smaller than the extent l/2b of the autocorrelation function of the gradient of the discontinuous parts, a number of samplings would be made in a single steep slope component so that the measured value of the jumping quantity A of the phenomenon wave form PU) would be only a fraction of the actual value. On the other hand if the sampling period T is larger than the lower limit value C the steep slope portion would occur twice during the sampling period. Thus, the measurement in this case would be such that two jumping quantities A are missed. Once the sampling period T is determined, then the jumping quantity A of the phenomenon wave form F(t) is to be determined. In particular, as shown in FIG. 5b the phenomenon wave form F(t) is sampled according to the sampling period T. It is now assumed that the sampled values at sampling times L t n n n are represented by F(t F0 F(t, F(t, F(/ and that t -t The statistical distribution of the jumping quantity A can be readily obtained by obtaining the difference between two adjacent sample values F(t and F(t for example, and applying said difference to the input of the pulse height analyzer. In this case the value of {lf(r (F(t, is negative and it is able to make this sign correspond to the slope of the increasing steep slope portion of the phenomenon wave form F(t). As

a consequence the value of the difference could be adapted as the value of the total jumping qtlllantity of this part of the phenomenon wave form only w en Also in the phenomenon wave form F(t) shown in FIG. 50, it is evident that there are two steep slope portions 13 and 14 if t 1) (n)} i) i+1)} In this case it is necessary to handle separately each steep slope portions 13 and 14 to take statistics. More particularly, when each sign of A is positively only differences obtained in the steep slope portions are added whereas Where the signs are negative they are discriminated as independent quantities. Then the phenomenon wave form F(t) is transformed into a digital pulse signal through an analogue-digital (A-D) converter and the digital pulse signal train is then counted by a reversible counter to provide positive pulses and negative pulses 16 corresponding to the differences in the steep slope portion as shown in FIG. 5d, these pulses being applied to a well known conventional digitalized pulse height analyzer circuit to obtain the statistical distribution of the jumping quantity.

Turning now to FIG. 6 which illustrates one embodiment of this invention a clock pulse oscillator 16 generates a clock pulse of particular frequency 1/ T1 which is impressed upon a sampling circuit 17. The phenomenon wave form F(t) in the form of an analogue quantity is impressed upon the sampling circuit 17 through an input terminal 18 and sampled therein. The sampled pulse obtained by the sampling circuit 17 is converted into a digital signal by the action of an A-D converter 19 and is then supplied to respective reversible counters 20 and 21. The clock pulse from the oscillator 16 is also supplied to a flip-flop circuit 22 with its output terminals 23 23 and 24 24 respectively connected to the positive and negative terminals 25 26 and 26 25 of the reversible counters 20 and 21. The output terminals of delay circuits, respectively, the output pulses of these delay circuits being utilized to reset said counters 20 and 21, respectively. The outputs from said counters 20 and 21 are supplied to a pulse height analyzer 29 to complete an automatic measuring device.

The operation of the embodiment shown in FIG. 6 is as follows:

Concurrently with the application of the phenomenon wave form F(t) expressed by analogue quantities to the sampling circuit 17 via the input terminal 18 the clock pulse from the clock pulse oscillator 16 is impressed upon the sampling circuit to efiect sampling. The sampled pulse produced by said sampling circuit 17 is transformed into a digital signal by the action of the A-D converter 19 and is then stored in the reversible counters 20 and 21 with positive and negative polarities respectively. On the other hand the clock pulse generated by the clock pulse generator 16 is applied to the flip-flop circuit 22 and the pulse appearing across the output terminals 23 and 23 of the flip-flop circuit 22 is supplied to the positive terminal 25 and negative terminal 25 of said reversible counters 20 and 21 which operate to add and store One or more pulses which have been converted into digital quantities by said A-D converter 19. Upon application of the next clock pulse to the flip-flop circuit 22, the output pulse appearing across output terminals 24 and 24 is impressed upon the negative terminal 26 and positive terminal 26 of the reversible counters 20 and 21 so that one or more pulses which have been converted into digital quantities by the A-D converter 19 are subtracted in the reversible counter 20 thereby forming a difference signal between two successive values. The pulse generated at the output terminal 24 of the flip-flop circuit 22 is delayed by passing it through the delay circuit 27 and is then applied to the reversible counter 20 to reset it. The difference signal is supplied to the pulse height analyzer 29 to obtain the statistic distribution of the jumping quantity A of the steep slope portion A. Again the flip-flop circuit 22 is operated by the next clock pulse to produce a pulse across output terminals 23 and 23 This pulse is applied to the reversible counters 20 and 21 to store one or more pulses which have been converted into digital quantities by the A-D converter 19 and which is added with negative polarity to the positive pulse previously stored in said counter 21 to form a difference signal. After being delayed by the delay circuit 28, the pulse appearing at the output'terminal 23 is utilized to reset the counter 21 to supply the difference signal to the pulse height analyzer 29. By repeating the above described operation it is possible to obtain the statistic distribution of the jumping quantity A of the steep slope portions of the phenomenon wave form F(t).

Thus, the outputs from two counters 20 and 21 always represent the difference between two immediately succeeding values since signals of alternately positive and negative signs are added and since the counters are reset after the positive or negative sign. For example, if the output from the counter is represented by {F (t )F (t then the output after reset would become and the output of the counter 21 before and after reset would be 1)- i+1)} and 1+2)- i+3) spectively. As a result, the difierence signals are supplied to the pulse height analyzer in the order of {F(t )F(t to determine the statistic distribution of the jumping quantity A of the steep slope portions of the phenomenon Wave form F(t).

FIG. 7 shows a modification of this invention wherein a dotted line rectangule A represents the same circuit as shown in FIG. 6 so that the same component parts are designated by the same reference numerals. In this modification the outputs from the reversible counters 20 and 21 are respectively stored in the memory circuits 30 and 31 and are also supplied to a comparison circuit 32. The clock pulse from the clock pulse oscillator 16 is supplied to a flip-flop circuit 33, the output terminals 34 and 34 thereof being connected to said memory circuits 30 and 31 respectively. The outputs from the memory circuits 30 and 31 are coupled with comparison circuit 32 and also with an integrating circuit 37 via limiters 35, 36, respectively. The output from the comparison circuit 32 is utilized to operate the integrating circuit through a delay circuit 38 the output from the integrating circuit 37 being applied to a pulse height analyzer 29.

The operation of this modification is as follows: First consider difierences between two adjacent values formed by the reversible counters 20 and 21, for example,

When A is being stored in the reversible counter 20, then it is able to be stored in the memory circuit 30 afterwards and now applied to the comparison circuit 32 directly. On the other hand there is no difference signal stored in the reversible counter 21 and in the memory circuit 31 has been stored A which was previously stored in the reversible counter 21. The clock pulse generated by the clock pulse oscillator 16 actuates the flip-flop circuit 33 and the pulse signal appearing at the output terminal 34 of the circuit 33 operates the memory circuit 31 whereby the difference signol A stored in the memory circuit 31 is applied to the comparison circuit 32 to be compared When the content of the reversible counter 20 becomes no difference signal and that of the reversible counter 21 becomes A which is directly applied to 32 then the difference signal A which has been stored in the memory circuit 30 will be supplied to the comparison circuit 32 by the pulse appearing across the output terminal 34 of the flip-flop circuit 33. Further the difference signal A contained in the counter 21 will be stored in the memory circuit 31 in the afterwards and will be applied from 31 to the comparison circuit 32 to be compared with A Further when the content of the reversible counter 20 becomes equal to the difference signal A and that of the reversible counter 21 becomes no difference signal, the content, or the difference signal A l of the counter 20 will be stored in the memory circuit 30 afterwards and is applied directly to the comparison circuit 32. On the other hand the difference signal A, stored in the memory circuit 31 is supplied to the comparison circuit 32 by the action of the pulse generated at the output terminal 34 of the flip-flop circuit to be compared with diiference signal A This comparison may be accomplished by subtracting the outputs from the memory circuits 30 and 31 from the outputs from the counters 20 and 21. However the signals are compared in the comparison circuit 32 in the form of signals having three values by means of a well known limiter circuit and the like in the comparison circuit 32. In other words, the output signals are classified into three types and The comparison circuit 32 provides out- Thus, the comparison circuit 32 operates to provide outputs when the sign of the signal varies, for example, from to from to 0, from to 0 and from to It is to be understood that when A, and A respectively stored in the memory circuits 30 and 31 are smaller than the preset value, they are reduced to zero and then supplied to the integrating circuit 37 which operates to provide an integrated sum. After being suitably delayed by a suitable delay circuit 38, the output from the comparison circuit 32 is supplied to the integrating circuit 37 to supply the integrated signal to the pulse height analyzer 29 and also to reset the integrating circuit 37. Thus for example when the comparison circuit 32 is set to provide outputs according to Table 1 the integrating circuit 37 would provide the required outputs according to Table 2.

either the counter 20 or 21 is or at clock times t, and n the A, and (A +A, are respectively stored in the integrating circuit 37 at times t, and t, Again, as the comparison circuit 32 provides outputs when the sign changes from or to zero, it will provide an output at a clock time n which operates to supply A t-A stored in the integrating circuit 27 to the pulse height analyzer 29. With regard to the case c when the phenomenon wave form F(t) is represented by the curve shown in FIG. 80, the outputs from both counters 20 and 21 are zero at clock times t and 1 and the output from either the counter 20 or counter 21 will be i at the clock time t When the output from either the counter 20 or 21 is I; at the clock time n when the comparison circuit 32 will provide outputs at clock times n and n to supply A, and A respectively and independently to the pulse height analyzer 29 to determine the statistical distribution of the jumping quantity of the steep slope portions of the phenomenon wave form F (t).

As has been described in the foregoing, the invention provides statistical measurements of the jumping quantity as well as the frequency of occurrence of the steep slope portions of a phenomenon wave form F(t). Further by utilizing a sampling circuit of the sampling period T which satisfies the relation expressed by the Equation 2, a selective counter connected to the sampling circuit, a classifying and comparison circuit and an integrating circuit it is possible to make accurate automatic statistical analysis of jumping quantities.

While there have been shown and described particular embodiments of the invention, it will be obvious to those skilled in the art that changes and modifications may be made without departing from the invention, and there fore it is intended by the appended claims to cover all such changes and modifications as fall within the true spirit and scope of the invention.

What is claimed is:

1. Apparatus for automatically statistically analyzing an information quantity comprising:

a clock pulse oscillator to generate a predetermined clock pulse;

TAB LE 2 a b 3 Clock 1-1 1 1-1 1-! i i+l 1+2 i-l r i-l i+2 Outputs of reversible countcr 0 :l: 0 0 :l: i 0 0 d: 0

Contents of integrating circuit.-. 0 A, 0 0 A Ari-Am 0 0 Ai A H 0 Outputs of comparison circuit. No Yes No No Y No Yes Yes Outputs of integrating circuitsr. No Ai No No Ai+Ai+ No A; H

With reference to the case a, when the phenomenon wave form F(t) is shown by FIG. 8a, the outputs of both counters 20 and 21 are zero at clock times t and m and when the output of either the counter 20 or 21 is or at time 2,, then the integrating circuit 37 will store A, at time t,. Since the comparison circuit 32 provides outputs when the sign changes from or to zero, the comparison circuit 32 will provide an output at a clock time t which is utilized to supply A, stored in the integrating circuit 37 to the pulse height analyzer 29.

With reference to the case b, when the phenomenon wave form F(t) is represented by the curve shown in FIG. 8b, the outputs from both counters 20 and 21 are zero at clock times 1 and n and when the output of where C represents the predetermined lower limit of the means value of the interval of the occurrence of steep slope phenomena and 1/2b represents the extent of the correlation range of the slope of the steep slope portions;

an analogue-to-digital converter to convert the sampled data obtained by the sampling action of said sampling circuit into a digital signal;

a first counter to count one of two adjacent measuring points in the digital signal transformed by said converter;

a second counter to count the other of said two adjacent measuring points;

a pulse height (or signal amplitude) analyzer; and

means to alternately supply signals counted by said first and second counters to said analyzer to measure the frequency distribution of occurrence of the jump ing quantities of said steep slope portions of said input signal.

2. A device for automatically statistically analyzing an information quantity comprising:

a clock pulse oscillator to generate a predetermined clock pulse;

a sampling circuit arranged to receive said predetermined clock pulse from said clock pulse oscillator and an input signal representing a phenomenon wave form including continuous slowly varying parts and suddenly changing steep slope portions, said sampling circuit having a sampling period T which is given by the equation I where C represents the predetermined lower limit of the means value of the interval of the occurrence of steep slope phenomena and 1/2b represents the extent of the correlation range of the slope of the steep slope portions;

an analogue-to-digital converter to convert the sampled data obtained by the sampling action of said sampling circuit into a digital signal;

a fiip-flop circuit actuated by the clock pulse generated by said oscillator;

a plurality of reversible counters driven by the pulse signal obtained by said flip-flop circuit to count the digital signal corresponding to one of the sampled data of two adjacent measuring points in said sampled pulse train;

means responsive to the next succeeding pulse produced by said flip-flop circuit to subtract a digital signal corresponding to the other sampled data of said two adjacent measuring points in said sampled pulse train in said reversible counters whereby a difference signal between two adjacent digital quantities may be formed;

a delay circuit to delay the pulse signal obtained by said flip-flop circuit;

a pulse height analyzer; and

means to supply the pulse signal which has been delayed by said delay circuit to said reversible counter to reset it to supply the difference signal stored in said counter to said pulse height analyzer to measure the frequency distribution of occurrence of the jumping quantities of said stee slope portions of said input signal.

3. Apparatus for automatically statistically analyzing an input signal comprising:

a clock pulse oscillator to generate a predetermined clock pulse;

a sampling circuit arranged to receive said predetermined clock pulse from said oscillator and an input signal representing a phenomenon wave form consisting of continuous parts and suddenly changing steep slope portions, said sampling circuit having a sampling period T which is given by the equation Where C represents a predetermined lower limit of the means value of the interval of the occurrence of steep slope phenomena, and 1/2b represents the extent of the correlation range of the slope of the steep slope portions;

an analogue-to-digital converter to convert the sampled data obtained by the sampling action of said sampling circuit into a digital signal;

a first counter to count one of two adjacent measuring points in the digital signal transformed by said converter;

a second counter to count the other of said measuring points;

a comparison circuit;

means to store a difference signal stored in said first counter in a first memory circuit and to supply said difference signal to said comparison circuit;

a flip-flop circuit actuated by said clock pulse supplied from said oscillator;

means responsive to the output from said fiip-flop circuit to drive either one of said first and second memory circuits thus supplying the difference signal stored in said memory circuit to said comparison circuit;

an integrating circuit adapted to reduce to zero through a limiter all difference signals having values less than a predetermined value and stored in said first and second memory circuits and then provide an accumulated sum of said difference signals;

a pulse height analyzer; and

means responsive to the output from said comparison circuit to supply the signals accumulated in said integrating circuit to said pulse height analyzer to automatically measure the distribution of the frequency of occurrence of jumping quantities of said steep slope portions of said input signal.

4. Apparatus for automatically statistically analyzing an input signal comprising:

a clock pulse oscillator adapted to generate a predetermined clock pulse;

a sampling circuit arranged to receive the predetermined clock pulse generated by said oscillator and an input signal representing a phenomenon wave form consisting of continuous parts and suddenly changing steep slope portions, said sampling circuit having a sampling period T which is given by an equation where C represents a predetermined lower limit of the mean value of the interval of the occurrence of steep slope phenomena, and 1/2b represents the extent of the correlation range of the slope of said steep slope portions;

an analogue-to-digital converter to convert the sampled data obtained by the sampling action of said sampling circuit into a digital signal;

a first counter to count one of two adjacent measuring points in the digital signal converted by said converter;

a second counter to count the other of said measuring points;

a comparison circuit;

means to store a difference signal stored in said first counter in a first memory circuit and to supply it to said comparison circuit;

means to store a difference signal stored in said second counter in a second memory circuit and to supply it to said comparison circuit;

a flip-flop circuit operated by the clock pulse from said oscillator;

means responsive to the output from said flip-flop circuit to drive either one of said first and second memory circuits to supply the difference signal stored in said memory circuits to said comparison circuit;

an integrating circuit adapted to reduce to zero through a limiter all difference signals having values less than a predetermined value and stored in said first and second memory circuits and then provide an accumulated sum of said difference signals;

means to generate an output of said comparison circuit only when the signs of adjacent difference signals change;

a pulse height analyzer; and

means responsive to said output to supply the signal accumulated in said integrating circuit to said pulse height analyzer to measure the distribution of occurrence of the jumping quantities of said steep slope portions of said input signal.

1 2 References Cited UNITED STATES PATENTS 2,806,205 9/ 1957 Donath. 3,197,700 7/1965 Schwartz et a1.

FOREIGN PATENTS 839,062 1960 Great Britain.

RUDOLPH V. ROLINEC, Primary Examiner 10 P. F. WILLE, Assistant Examiner 

